Library Lost & Found is a US-based blog for library leaders. They feature a range of interesting pieces exploring libraries and leadership from a range of perspectives. They regularly share interesting ‘serious’ pieces such as their career advancement interviews – interviewing librarians about their career paths but they also share some fun creative pieces – looking for library lessons in all kinds of places. The piece we wanted to share with you today is one of those pieces entitled ‘Lessons from My Yoga Teacher’ :

At the very end of last night’s yoga class, as I lay in Savasana, trying to think about nothing, my mind wandered (as it often does during attempted meditation) to my yoga teacher. There are many fabulous teachers at my studio, but there is one instructor in particular whose classes I love to attend. I began to pick apart exactly why this teacher is my favorite.

She smiles a lot. This says, “I’m glad to be here! This is where I want to be.” I immediately feel more comfortable with someone who isn’t wishing she were somewhere else.

She makes eye contact with me and greets me in a personal way, letting me know that she sees me not as just a name on the sign-in sheet or a body on a mat, but as a human being.

She’s calm. Everything is going to be okay. In fact, you know what? Everything is okay.

She consistently delivers a high-quality product. Her classes reflect good planning and balance, and they begin and end on time. This level of professionalism lets her students know that she respects our time, and she wants us to have the best experience possible.

She offers a lot of options and clear explanations, acknowledging that every person in the room is at a different place physically and emotionally, and that none of us are yoga experts. She doesn’t expect that we will understand technical yoga jargon.

I quickly realized that these are all characteristics and habits that can be easily applied to many fields—including librarianship.

We’d like you to share with us – where have you learnt an unexpected lesson about what could make libraries and librarians better at what we do? Comment here or join the conversation by commenting on our Facebook page or on Twitter using #interlibnet